


Lionheart

by oroszlan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Gen, Gryffindor Sirius Black, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus is Not Okay, Sort Of, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, big lion just wants his brother to be ok, good-ish regulus black, gryffindors are just slytherins but a bit sneakier with bigger balls, i mean every other house canonically hates them, thats official now sorry i dont make the rules, whoops i slipped now there are feelings all over the place, why? exactly. gryffindors are just better slytherins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oroszlan/pseuds/oroszlan
Summary: "It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life."or, Regulus Black wakes up. It's a whole new (old) world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> y'all. sequels are coming. i promise. but in the meantime, have some of my poor precious regulus feelss. i love him. quote from elizabeth kenny.

Regulus wakes, which is the first surprise of the morning. The last thing he remembers was the water of the lake, and hands reaching-grasping-burning -

He gasps, takes a breath. In. Out.

He's still breathing. Morgana’s saggy left tit, he’s still breathing, and isn’t that the biggest surprise of all?

He sits up slowly, hoping against hope that this isn't the afterlife, that Kreacher perhaps came back for him, rescued him, but his hope fades as he looks around his room. It's virtually empty in comparison to how he remembered it, no newspaper clippings on the wall, or anything from his time in Hogwarts, actually. No, he realises as he swings his legs over the side of the bed.

There isn't a single thing here from before he was eleven. With dawning horror, he looks down at himself. Skinny arms and legs meet his gaze, much too skinny. He lurches to his feet, panicked, and realises he's at least a good foot shorter than he remembers being yesterday. He wants to cry when he sees both of his forearms, still pale and unmarked.

Merlin above, he's hallucinating, he must be. He feels his stomach twist violently, and throws himself towards the bathroom just in time, skidding on his knees until he hits the cool porcelain of the toilet, unceremoniously emptying his stomach into it. He leans his head against the bowl and reminds himself to breathe. It's a terrible, terrible privilege now he knows how easy it is to stop breathing, knows what it's like to thrash towards a surface you can never reach - He's too busy reacquainting himself with the contents of his stomach to notice Sirius easing his door open.

His dear, idiotic, lion of a brother, who pulls his hair out of his face and runs a hand down his back that Regulus cannot help but arch up into. He thought he'd never see his brother again, had thought that it would be worth it if he knew Sirius would have been proud of him -

Belatedly, he realises that he's crying, and Sirius has pressed him to his chest, murmuring nonsense in the way sixteen-year-old him would never do, but Sirius is thirteen. Sirius still loves him. Sirius does not know what he has done, would have done, and a very Slytherin part of Regulus is glad, because Sirius would never so much as look him in the eye, let alone hug him again.

"Hey," his brother rumbles after Regulus has managed somewhat to get his breathing under control again. "Hey, Reggie, there you are. You're alright. We’re alright.”

Regulus just holds his brother a little tighter because by the end of the day, he will be back to being the Dutiful Heir and Sirius the Family Disgrace, their two roles defined ever since Sirius first donned the red and gold.

Regulus knows that Sirius keeps a worried eye on him all through the morning, right up until they were about to get on the train, and the other three idiot lions came charging up to him. He smiled at his brother, trying to convey a confidence he didn't possess.

"Go on," he snorts, and shoves him a little, almost wrinkling his nose in disgust at the weakness of his thin arms. "I can find a compartment myself, I'm not completely incapable."

Sirius looks him in the eyes like he can see into his very soul, and Regulus resists the urge to shiver. "Reggie -" he starts, looking more than a little uncomfortable, eyes darting away. "Just - you'll always be my brother, okay?"

He's gone before Regulus can even think of something to say, ruffling Potter's hair and dodging the resounding tackle with a baying laugh.

Regulus smiles a little to himself, and boards the train alone.

The time he spends on the train is spent strategizing and catching a nap. He quickly regrets the second thing, because he wakes up gasping for air again, like his body had forgotten that it was supposed to be living as soon as he closed his eyes. He’d been expecting trouble with nightmares, had anticipated and planned, but nothing could prepare him for this, for closing his eyes and not knowing whether he would be allowed to open them again, if he was simply going to fade between one hour and the next. It’s the fear that gets to him the most, that leads him to cast the strongest Lumos he can muster and try to forget how green light looks dancing against the walls of a cave, desperately trying to black out what water sounds like when it rasps hungrily against the shore because the Slytherin common room has all of these dangers, and worse, it has the people that he has stood both beside and against. He will have to remember how to live unnoticed by them too, except he cannot, will not perhaps be able to pretend to love the Dark Lord like he did back then, because he will not be able to look at the green and silver trim of their robes again without thinking of death.

It is so easy to die, and that terrifies him, because he knows exactly how much water you must take into your lungs, exactly how many panicked breaths it takes to succumb, and he calculates this effortlessly as they cross the Black Lake. He has always been praised for his stellar memory, for his intelligence, and he wants desperately to turn to Rosier and tell him that there is no peace in death, that it is messy and painful right to the very end, terrifying to the last breath, and he has faced it willingly. He has faced down death itself and come out the other side, and it is this that gives him the strength to stand from the boat and cross to the front hall, to turn his back to the siren song of the waves of the lake.

Regulus thinks, as they line up, that perhaps he will always hear the sea in between each breath, shall forever be haunted by drifting hair and reaching, grasping hands just underneath the surface, will always remember that he is nothing more than a dead man walking, even without the Mark burned across his forearm like he was nothing more than chattel. He wasn’t even that, he knows that now, had ranked somewhere just above the latest Muggle corpse that needed to be disposed of, and just below the latest Magical corpse that needed to be displayed to show nobody crossed the Dark Lord and lived. If he is to do it all again, he is already damned as he was at eighteen, terrified at a world that had fallen apart underneath his feet.

He barely registers the Hall with it’s ceiling showcasing stars that look somewhat like fireflies against dark crags of a vaulted tomb. He doesn’t hear the murmurings of the student body, sounding like liquid lapping quietly against porous stone, and tells himself he is imagining the steady dripping noise that sounds from somewhere off to his left.

He gets his second attack of nerves when "Black, Regulus!" is called, but there's nowhere for him to hide and have a gasping crying fit like he did earlier, so he hides all his discomfort and fear beneath the Pureblood mask that was beat into him from an early age, and lets the Hat be settled onto his head.

_Oh,_ says the Hat, first of all. _Oh, my dear boy._

_You have to sort me back there,_ Regulus thinks, despite how it makes his hands shake _. I can be useful. I could be a spy, I'll be **needed** there. There is a **war** coming._

(What he doesn't see is that with every second that ticks by with silence from the hat, the Slytherin table gets a little tenser and on the opposite side of the hall, Sirius Black grasps his friends' hands a little tighter and hopes a little harder.)

The Hat hums in disapproval in his head. _Bright. You’ve a clever mind too, very clever. You're a strategist to the bone, you know. I wasn't wrong the first time, Ravenclaw would suit you well. A great mind like this should not be wasted again._

Regulus thinks about it, how his life would be so much easier, and dismisses it in the same thought. He is a Black. He was built to take pain, and suffering, and madness. He was built to do his duty.

_I can't go there,_ he tells the Hat, and only feels a faint flickering of regret that he hopes it cannot see. _I have to do my duty, no matter how much it might scare me. I **must** go to Slytherin. I **must** destroy his Horcrux._

_You have already died in the name of duty, boy, and you would be willing to do it again?_ the Hat asks, something unreadable in its tone. _You are a child, not a soldier._

Regulus shrugs as best as he can at it. _We will all be soldiers soon. And, even if nobody ever discovered that I stole the Horcrux, I would steal it again, a hundred times over. It'd be worth it, to know I defied him._

_Very well,_ the Hat replies, tone smug, _Self-sacrificing, along with good dash of bravery - born from fear, true, but that is where bravery is nearly always born, boy, don't let them tell you any different, and no one could contest that you stand up for what you believe in -_ and Regulus has only a fraction of a second to feel suspicion and desperately thinks _Don't you dare!_ before the Hat bellows,

"Better be **_Gryffindor!_** "

The Hat, damn the wretched thing, is removed from his head, and it's shout is ringing in Regulus's head as he takes one trembling step, two, towards the lion's table, away from the green and silver he used to take so much pride in.There's a stunned silence, as it sinks in that not one, but two Black boys have bucked the family trend, and then Sirius, his dear Sirius, stands up, and begins to whoop and clap and cheer, which is followed by his idiotic friends, which is followed by others until Regulus is being welcomed to the table by slaps on the back and laughter and so much joy he can barely think, can barely breathe.

Across the table, Sirius grins, drags him in for a hug, ignoring McGonagall's requests for them to _quieten down this instance unless Gryffindor House wanted to start the year on negative points._ He allows himself to smile back, curve his hands around his brother, and hold on, losing his Pureblood mask for the precious seconds his face was hidden from the world.

His robes now bear the red and gold he used to hate, and he can't even bring himself to care as he tells his brother, "Well, I was named for a lion, wasn't I? It's about time I started acting like one!" and Sirius ruffles his hair delightedly.

Later will be the arguments and the shouts and the recriminations, but for now, Regulus lets himself have this one joy, rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. He can practically taste freedom on his lips, here in the lion’s den, and he thinks to himself as he tucks into roast potatoes and a slab of beef that lies intimidatingly large on his plate, that maybe, maybe, this is what falling in love with life is – a brother framed by warm torchlight, and a whole life suddenly unfurling in front of you where before there was only a lake and a cave. (and a tomb)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regulus lives. This is the hard part.

Regulus wakes to red and gold hangings and wonders if he is still dreaming.

He takes a deep breath, two, and tries to banish the feeling of water in his lungs. It'll take time, he reminds himself as he wobbles to his feet. Baby steps, he thinks as he throws on a robe, trying not to look at the crest on it. Baby steps, he repeats as he slips out of the common room and down to the Great Hall, practically empty at the early hour.

As soon as he settles on the end of the Gryffindor Table, he spots one of the Black owls swooping in, perfectly timed to avoid notice. It isn't one of the owls they would use between family members, however, he notes with dread, rather it is an impersonal owl used for business.

It drops the letter it is carrying and flies off without waiting for reply, and Regulus feels numb as he reaches for it, the silence of the Great Hall becoming deafening in his ears. The seal on the back isn't his mother or father's personal seal, but again the bog-standard Black seal, he notes absently as he flicks it open.

He skims through the words and takes a moment to be thankful that his parents run cold and impersonal when they are angry, because he doesn't think he could do this in a crowded hall with people reading over his shoulder. He checks it again, desperate for it to be some sort of mistake, but the words remain solid and immovable on the page; he is no longer a Black, he has no right to any estates or inheritance or to be sheltered under a Black property or under the Black name; his children shall never inherit from the Black line, etcetera, etcetera.

He is surprised and not at the same time, he thinks as he bows his head in realisation. His mother had always been a harsh woman, and his father worse; they were prepared to tolerate their precious first-born falling from the nest, but he was supposed to be perfect, the perfect second son to continue on the family legacy. _Toujours Pur_ , he thinks bitterly, reaching for his glass of pumpkin juice so that he could at least do something with his hands that didn't involve a wand. If he had lived the first time, he wonders, would it have been the same?

He shakes his head to dispel the thoughts - he has more pressing matters. If he is no longer a Black, he needs to update the Headmaster in order to withdraw from the school; he can't possibly afford the fees by himself and it is a convenient excuse to disappear into the world of Horcrux hunting. The Regulus from Before would have been scandalised at the idea of dropping out of school, but he isn't that boy anymore. He has gone as far as he can in his education it seems, this time round, and he allows himself to mourn as he rises from the table again, back straight and head high. It takes an embarrassingly long time to compose himself as he winds his way through the familiar corridors, and if Regulus was still a Black he would be horrified at being in such a state in public. But Regulus is not a Black anymore, and the very thought pains him to his core.

Knocking on the Headmaster’s door is perhaps the hardest thing he has done, because he knows once he is admitted inside, it will be the last time he will do so as a student of Hogwarts. He knows the idea should not ring so hollowly in his mind as it does, for he has graduated once before, but something seems wrong with abandoning Hogwarts like this.

_Not by choice,_ he reminds himself as he is told to enter. _Not by choice._

…..

Sirius wakes up groggy and disorientated to the sound of Peter and James wrestling, and it takes him until they are sat at the table in the Great Hall to remember the events of the night before; of Regulus’ sorting.

He peers down the table to where the firsties normally sit, but there’s no sign of him there, and he frowns.

“Something wrong?” Remus asks between mouthfuls of porridge, craning his head to try and see what had Sirius upset before classes had even started.

“Reggie,” Sirius replied, turning back to his meagre breakfast. “He isn’t down yet.”

James smiles from across the table and tries to spear an egg from Sirius’ plate. “Relax,” he advised as Sirius batted him away with an eye roll. “Probably just slept in.”

Peter hums in response. “Don’t the prefects make sure firsties are down for timetables though?”

Sirius physically feels his stomach drop as Marlene leans over and agrees with Peter that she saw them being shepherded down that morning. _His brother is missing already – it’s only the first day of school, Sirius was going to look out for him –_

His salvation comes in the form of McGonagall sweeping down the row to distribute Gryffindor House’s timetable, who pauses as she reaches their group.

“Mr Black,” she says, and Sirius knows her well enough by now to read the sadness and sympathy in the lines of her face. “Please come with me.”

“Is it about Reg?” he demands, half rising from his seat, shaking off Remus’s hand from his shoulder. “Is he alright?”

The professor says nothing, but her shoulders slump a little more.

“Please,” she repeats. “Come with me.”

“Go,” James tells him, beaming smile reduced to nothing but a wry twist of the lips. “We’ll take notes for you.”

“You mean I will,” Remus grumbles, but doesn’t complain further.

Sirius goes with little grace, and a lot of worry, trailing helplessly behind his head of house all the way to her office.

She tells him to take a seat, and he does, perching on the edge.

“Where is my brother?” he asks again, and he cannot help but feel defensive.

McGonagall hands him a letter, instead, and Sirius has been a Black long enough to know what a notification letter looks like; they denote changes to the family, and for a minute he is afraid that it is his name he will find inside.

He is both angry and guiltily, guiltily relieved when it says that Regulus has been disowned.

“Where is he?” he asks again, voice small.

McGonagall reaches forward, sets her hand on his shoulder, and he allows himself to lean into the comfort; he is alone here. He is safe here.

“He’s with the Headmaster right now, seeing if they can work out a way for him to remain at the school.”

Sirius stares blankly at her for a moment before it clicks. “They pulled his tuition? Those basta -” He cuts himself off just in time but shakes his head in anger instead.

He ignores the thought that said that could have been me, this could be me if my parents ever decide they’re done with my straying toward the light –

McGonagall’s lips are pursed in anger as if she knows what is running through his head. “Can I see him?” he asks, hating how weak his voice sounds. “I just – I just want to make sure he’s alright.”

He thinks of the way he found him yesterday morning, throwing up and miserable and wonders if Reggie had known that he would never go back to Grimmauld Place, was giving up every privilege he had as a Black by stepping on the train. The thought makes him sick, that he hadn't realised, hadn't known.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She tells him, interrupting his musing, tone determined and firm, and Sirius can’t help but believe that she’ll move mountains if that is what it takes. “Your brother will be alright. Believe that, if nothing else. He is a lion now, and we take care of our own.”

Sirius nods, wordless.

“Run on to class now.”

He rises on shaky legs, and as he heads back down the stairs of the only home he has ever known and makes his choice.

Walburga, he tells the boys as they huddle round their Potions station, will have two sons or none.

And the world unexpectedly, irrevocably _shifts._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regulus thinks that the taste of hope in his mouth is remarkably similar to that of blood, coppery, slick and undoubtedly misplaced.

Regulus doesn't think of his brother for a good hour or so, too busy panicking and pretending _not_ to panic and trying to remember how to avoid Legilimency, and hoping it just comes across as shock rather than a Slytherin who had somehow snuck into the lion's den - 

So it isn't until he's perched, gasping, underneath one of the gargoyles by the door to Dumbledore's office that he realises that Sirius would have got an owl too, being the Wayward Heir of the family still.

And that his dear, idiotic, brave brother has never been good at making level-headed, sensible decisions.

He thunks his head back into the solid limestone, and accidentally brushes his cheek against it -

And suddenly he's back in the cave, stone slick under his fingers with lake water or with blood, and he can't get a grip on it, sliding slowly backwards -

But the stone never talked before - the cave had never told him to stop shaking and get off of it - that wasn't the rushing of water in his ears but just the blood in his head, safe where it belonged, pounding to the same beat, reminding him that -

Reminding him that he ought to get up, get moving, get on with the whole dreadful living business. 

Get to Sirius before he does anything rash.

He drags himself to his feet, scrubbing a shaky hand down his face. He hadn't expected to be thrown by stone, of all things, but he knows what limestone feels when you dig into it with your fingernails, know what it feels like under scrabbling hands, know what it feels like to gasp into it desperately, knowing it's the last solid thing between you and the shambling, horrific thing right behind you -

Breathe - he needs to - breathe.

Limestone.

Shit, he thinks to himself, the whole castle is made of the damn thing. And he can't spend the whole year hidden in the Forbidden Forest, because it sat bordering the lake and -

He doesn't realise he's standing in the middle of the corridor, as far away from the walls as he can possibly get until someone bumps into him and distracts him from his daydream of being surrounded by wood, nice safe wood forever and ever -

And grasps him by the shoulders.

It's Lupin.

The other boy says something, peering intently at his face, and Regulus' ears are still ringing, and he's still not breathing right -

"Okay," he thinks he makes out. "Hey, it's okay -"

And Regulus is deeply ashamed because he still hasn't found Sirius to tell him not to do anything stupid, that he's alright -

"Bit too late for that one," Lupin says, and Regulus can hear over the pounding of the waves in his head/over the sound of the blood right where it's supposed to be -

And he wants to swear, but the hands on his shoulders haven't moved yet, anchoring him to the here and now, but he suspects that's more through awkwardness on Lupin's part, afraid of letting go rather than anything deliberate.

Lupin finally releases him, steps back half a pace, and nods firmly. "Shock's a hell of a thing. Eat this, and then I'll take you to your brother."

It's chocolate, he realises as the taste hits his tongue, sweeping away the taste of salt and guilt.

The weight of his robes feels a little less suffocating now, and he tightens his tie back around his neck, not realising he had loosened it in the first place.

(He pretends it doesn't feel like a noose, golden, dripping with blood -)

Lupin doesn't try and make conversation, doesn't ask him about Dumbledore or his status as a student, just leads him unerringly through the winding corridors and staircases that Regulus is allowed to call his for a little longer at least.

"Y'know," He says as Regulus hops one-two-three over the trick steps, and Regulus is so startled that he plunges his right leg clean through one of them, leg sunk into the stone up to the knee, and if Regulus was a lesser man-boy? - he would have cried right then and there.

Regulus swings his head up to meet his gaze and is promptly reminded that he's staring at an apex predator inside a thirteen-year-old's skin. Lupin's expression makes it very clear that this was one-hundred per cent on purpose, and Regulus' palms start itching for a wand.

"Y'know," He says again, and Regulus prepares himself for - he doesn't know what. A warning to disappear, perhaps? A drawn wand, and the accusation, and for a moment he swore his arm burned in phantom pain -

"Some people aren't sure you sorted - right." Is what actually comes out of the boy's mouth, and Regulus has to resist doing a double take. Has to resist asking who some people were made up of. "This isn't going to be an easy road to travel. Bravery, loyalty, chivalry, daring, _nerve -_ are you really sure you can cut it?"

Regulus could taste the false sympathy from twenty paces. "No-one would blame you for stepping back from this. You certainly aren't going to be _liked,_ not by those who used to call you their friend, and you'll certainly never quite be trusted, the second son who could never quite step out from his brother's shadow. Why, some might even go as far as to call you a spy in the making -"

And Regulus does manage to suppress both laughter and a flinch at that, because if only Remus knew what was coming -

"You think that scares me?" He answers with a snort and ticks an internal box - foolhardiness. Nerve. Daring, even.

"See -" and Remus leans closer, until Regulus could count every nick on his freckled face, and if he just glanced down, could see exactly how sharp those teeth were - "Shit like that's going to get you into trouble, because that's just Slytherin manipulation, basic and hard to hide. You have to be _better_ than that."

Regulus tips his head to the side to match, and grins, because he understands, now. He knows what this _is_ , knows what the point of this _is,_ and he's played this game with much more deadlier opponents than Remus Lupin.

"Speaking from experience, I see," and he can't help his own grin, predator sharp, "Easiness has nothing to do with this. Nerve, daring, bravery - those are just words. You can't measure that. And isn't it a measure," And here he plants his free hand on his chest, a wicked light in his eyes as he turns on his charm up to the maximum, putting as much obnoxious earnestness into each word as he could manage without making himself throw up. "of my loyalty to the light that I've voluntarily made myself penniless, renounced my family upbringing of the traditional and the dark - I just want to be _good._ I'm only here to learn, to better myself so I might build a life outside of the insidious cultlike upbringing I received, after following my dear, beloved Lion brother out of the dark, i want to learn how to shine on my own merit for the very first time -"

He stops, brought to a halt by the rusty chuckling of the predator two steps above him.

Lupin nods, shoulders still shaking. "You'll do," he says, mouth twisting into a smirk. "We'll make you into a proper Gryffindor yet."

"Now," he says, face going darkly intent again. "Get up."

Regulus does not waste breath on words like, "My leg is trapped," or, "Will you step back and let me do this on my own," because he knows this is a test too.

He doesn't bother to jerk, or twist, or try to use sheer force to pull his leg out. He keeps his hands off of the stone, dry and worn smooth by hundreds of shoed feet, and instead offers a smile to the other boy, and asks, "Please, would you give me a hand?"

Lupin looks into his eyes, and Regulus wonders what he'll see. Wonders if sees an ocean. Wonders if he sees the light fading as you get deeper and deeper into the murky-cold water. He wonders, and waits.

"Manners got beat into you better than Sirius, then," Remus remarks, still not offering a hand to him. Regulus is well aware that by now his leg is up to his thigh in the staircase, and if he sinks much further he's going to have to pretend how to know Winguardium Leviosa well before his first ever Charms class.

"You're going to have to be better," He's warned, and Regulus wants to snap that he gets that, because his leg is slipping deeper again, and he'd really like to get out of this now, because being swallowed up is going to give him nightmares tonight, "You can't be good. Can't be average. You're going to have to be excellent, and better than that, and people will hate you either way."

He snorts, and he loses another inch from the abortive movement. "They already do. I can live with that."

"You'll have to." He's warned, and finally, finally, Lupin offers his hand to him. Regulus grasps it without a second thought, stone uncomfortably close to his hip now, and becoming painful.

He's pulled up with a yank, suddenly on his own two feet again, and he stumbles, despite himself.

"It's Remus," he's told as the boy turns away to lead him down another winding set of steps.

Regulus nods, even though Remus can't see him, and decides never to even dream of setting foot in the Shrieking Shack while it's inhabitant still lived, remembering well Severus's shaky tales of how the monster nearly killed him.

He can only trot along behind and hope that whatever his brother has done, it isn't absolutely, insanely stupid.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so I got really caught up with playing around here and didn't explain the Dumbledore scene at all, I know, but that's coming next, promise, along with big brother Sirius, tears, some cameos and Regulus remembering that first-year classes are going to suck so, so hard.  
> also, thank you all for your wonderful feedback on this story! if anyone has any ideas/criticisms, etc, please don't hesitate to reach out, i'm always happy to hear it!!


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